Chemokines are chemotactic cytokines of which major functions are migration of inflammatory cells that express relevant chemokine receptors on their surfaces to sites of inflammation, and activation of inflammatory cells. There are two classes of chemokines, C—X—C (.alpha.) and C—C (i), depending on whether the first two cysteines are separated by a single amino acid (C—X—C) or are adjacent (C—C).
One of the C—C family of chemokines, eotaxin, is an 8.4 kDa (74 amino acid) poly-peptide and binds with high affinity solely to the receptor CCR3. In vitro and in vivo eotaxin causes chemotaxis of inflammatory cells expressing CCR3 [Elsner J., Hochstetter R., Kimming D. and Kapp A.: Human eotaxin represents a potent activator of the respiratory burst of human eosinophils. Eur. J. Immunol., 26: 1919-1925, 1996.].
The chemokine receptor CCR3 is a G protein-coupled, seven transmembrane domain receptor (GPCR) which binds to known ligands, in addition to eotaxin, including eotaxin-2 (CCL24), RANTES (CCL5), MCP-3 (CCL7) and MCP-4 (CCL13). CCR3 is expressed on inflammatory cells relevant to the chronic asthma pathology. Such inflammatory cells include Eosinophils [Sabroe I., Conroy D. M., Gerard N. P., Li Y., Collins P. D., Post T. W., Jose P. J., Williams T. J., Gerard C. J., Ponath P. D. J. Immunol. 161: 6139-6147, 1998], basophils [Uguccioni M., Mackay C. R., Ochensberger B., Loetscher P., Rhis S., LaRosa G. J., Rao P., Ponath P. D., Baggiolini M., Dahinden C. A. J. Clin. Invest. 100: 1137-1143, 1997], Th2 cells [Sallusto F., Mackay C. R., Lanzavecchia A. Science. 277: 2005-2007, 1997], alveolar macrophages [Park I. W., Koziel H., Hatch W., Li X., Du B., Groopman I. E. Am. J. Respir. Cell Mol. Biol. 20:864-71, 1999] and mast cells [Oliveira S. H. and Lukacs N. W. Inflamm. Res. 50: 168-174. 2001]. Very recently, it was reported that BEAS-2B, an epithelial cell line, stimulated with TNF-α and IFN-γ, expressed CCR3 [Stellato C., Brummet M. E., Plitt J. R., Shahabuddin S., Baroody F. M., Liu M., Ponath P. D., and Beck L. A. J. Immunol., 166: 1457-1461, 2001.].
In animal models, eotaxin-knockout mice showed decreased eosinophilia after antigen challenge [Rothenberg M. E., MacLean J. A., Pearlman E., Luster A. D. and Leder P. J. Exp. Med., 185: 785-790, 1997] and in IL5-/eotaxin-double knock-out mice there is no eosinophilia or AHR in response to antigen challenge [Foster P. S., Mould A. W., Yang M., Mackenzie J., Mattes J., Hogan S. P., Mahalingam S., Mckenzie A. N. J., Rothenberg M. E., Young I. G., Matthaei K. I. and Webb D. C. Immunol. Rev., 179, 173-181, 2001]. Clinically, expression of eotaxin and CCR3 mRNA and protein is observed in the lung tissues of atopic asthmatics and is associated with AHR, reduced FEV1 and lung eosinophilia [Ying S., Robin D. S., Meng Q., Rottman J., Kennedy R., Ringler D. J., Mackay C. R., Daugherty B. L., Springer M. S., Durham S. R., Williams T. J. and Kay A. B.: Enhanced expression of eotaxin and CCR3 mRNA and protein in atopic asthma. Association with airway hyperresponsiveness and predominant colocalization of eotaxin mRNA to bronchial epithelial and endothelial cells. Eur. J. Immunol., 27, 3507-3516, 1997; Lamkhioued Renzi P. M., AbiYounes S., GarciaZepada E. A., Allakhverdi Z., Ghaffar O., Rothenberg M. D., Luster A. D. and Hamid Q.: Increased expressions of eotaxin in bronchoalveolar lavage and airways of asthmatics contributes to the chemotaxis of eosinophils to the site of inflammation. J. Immunol., 159: 4593-4601, 1997; Jahnz-Royk K., Plusa T. and Mierzejewska J.: Eotaxin in serum of patients with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: relationship with eosinophil cationic protein and lung function. Mediators of Inflammation, 9: 175-179, 2000]. In addition, in allergic rhinitis, CCR3-expressing Th2 lymphocytes co-localize with eosinophils in nasal polyps in close proximity to eotaxin-expressing cells [Gerber B. O., Zanni M. P., Uguccioni M., Loetscher M., Mackay C. R., Pichler W. J., Yawalkar N., Baggiolini M. and Moser B.: Functional expression of the eotaxin receptor CCR3 in T lymphocytes co-localizing with eosinophils. CURRENT BIOLOGY 7: 836-843, 1997]. Moreover, viral infections (RSV, influenza virus) which are known risk factors in asthma, result in increased eotaxin expression in lung tissue which is correlated with tissue eosinophilia [Matsukura S., Kokubo F., Kubo H., Tomita T., Tokunaga H., Kadokura M., Yamamoto T., Kuroiwa Y., Ohno T., Suzaki H. and Adachi M.: Expression of RANTES by normal airway epithelial cells after influenza virus A infection. Am. J. Respir. Cell and Mol. Biol., 18: 255-264, 1998; Saito T., Deskin R. W., Casola A., Haeberle H., Olszewska B., Ernest P. B., Alam R., Ogra P. L. and Garofalo R.: Selective regulation of chemokine production in human epithelial cells. J. Infec. Dis., 175: 497-504, 1997].
Thus the binding of CCR3 and related chemokine including eotaxin has been implicated as being important mediators of inflammatory and immunoregulatory disorders and diseases, including asthma, rhinitis, and allergic diseases, as well as autoimmune pathologies such as rheumatoid arthritis, Grave's disease, and atherosclerosis. It is also implicated that binding of CCR3 and related chemokine is an important factor of virus infections including HIV [(Marone G, de Paulis A, Florio G, Petraroli A, Rossi F, Triggiani M.: Int Arch Allergy Immunol 2001 June; 125(2)/89-95), (Li Y et al.,: Blood 2001 Jun. 1; 97(10:3484-90), and (Marone G, Florio G, Petraroli A, Triggiani M, de Paulis A: Trends Immunol 2001 May; 22 (5):229-32)], lung granuloma (Ruth J H, Lukacs N W, Warmington K S, Polak T J, Burdick M, Kunkel S L, Strieter R M, Chensue S W: J Immunol 1998 Oct. 15; 161 (8):4276-82), and Alzheimer's diseases (Xia M Q, Qin S X, Wu L J, Mackay C R, and Hyman B T: Am J Pathol 1998 July; 153 (1):31-37).
Therefore, CCR3 is an important target and antagonism of CCR3 is likely to be effective in the treatment of such inflammatory and immunoregulatory disorders and diseases.
WO 00/76514 and WO 00/76513 disclose cyclopentyl modulators of chemokine receptors including CCR3 activity represented by the general formula:

wherein
X″, x, y, R1′, R2′, R3′, R4′ R5′, R6′ R7′ and R8′ are defined in the application.
Other applications also disclose CCR3 modulators.
However, none of the reference and other reference discloses simple sulfonamide derivatives having CCR3 antagonistic activity.
The development of a compound having effective CCR3 antagonistic activity and can be used for the prophylaxis and treatment of diseases associated with CCR3 activity has been desired.